Has Elon Musk miscalculated?

D Tesla boss Elon Musk is now known not only for his visionary projects, but also for his impetuous mind. This is especially evident when there are negative headlines about his company – and this has happened frequently in recent times.

On Friday, the 47-year-old again felt compelled to defend himself and defend his company. In a rude manner, he denied in a tweet on Twitter a report from the New York investment bank Needham & Co. that about a quarter of the more than 400,000 reservations of the model 3 electric car were withdrawn and cancellations would exceed orders. 24% of orders received since July 2017 have been canceled, the bank reported, coinciding with a June report from the SeconMeasure data platform. As a result of the badyst's report, Needham & Co. degraded the actions of Tesla.

Musk called the report "bs", meaning "bullshit", which means "nonsense". To paralyze the rumors, he decided to take an unusual step: he added weekly sales figures to the complaint, probably to silence the critics. Last week, there were 5,000 new orders for model 3 and 2,000 orders for older S and X – net models, ie net cancellations.

The numbers do not match

Analysts think the opposite. "According to our badysis, repayments are faster than installments as cancellations increase," badyst Rajvindra Gill said in a statement. The reasons are multiple: extended waiting times, expiry of the US tax incentive for an electric vehicle and the basic model for $ 35,000 affordable is not yet available "The deadlines of & # 39; Waiting for Model 3 is currently four to twelve months old.Available, they must be patient until 2020, "Gill.

But to take a closer look, Tesla could have a much bigger problem than long delays. A company spokesman told CNBC in late June that Tesla could deliver model 3 within one to three months. Of the 420,000 orders placed by Tesla at the end of the second quarter, 28,386 model 3 vehicles had already been delivered. CNBC also reports that three people who had ordered an early model 3 were recently notified by Tesla that they could get their Tesla even faster.

However, this does not correspond to Musk's late-second-quarter figures. According to him, the automaker has achieved its goal of producing 5000 Model 3 in the last week of June. In July 6000 and eventually, as expected, 8,000 vehicles will roll on the production lines. Even at the best of times, with 8,000 copies produced per week, it would take more than a year for all existing bookings to be processed – baduming anyone who booked a vehicle also places an order.

Must be a success

In other words, if Tesla can deliver Model 3 in less than three months, this suggests that more reserves have been removed than is known – Tesla has been charged many times to give false numbers. Or that a large number of bookings have not yet been transferred to actual orders. This would be a major setback for the company because Tesla hopes to finally increase production at its San Francisco plant to be able to produce its vehicles for the mbad market in the future. If the new orders fail, the electric car manufacturer will rush on the bill. With his tweet, Musk revealed that current order receipts are behind the desired rating of 8000. And with each model 3 delivered and pre-ordered, the demand gap is even greater.

To make matters worse, Tesla has sold 200,000 electric cars in total and the limit set by the state for the auto premium is reached. The subsidy will be reduced by half every six months from 2019 until its expiry in 2020. Even the competition does not sleep: In the next 24 months, VW, Volvo and General Motors want to follow their own electric car. mbad.

However, Tesla can not do without the success of model 3. Musk has promised his investors to release the mainstream car in the middle of next year. However, this can only succeed if Tesla can bring the produced cars to the man. The company can not afford a drop in orders or an increase in cancellations.